After the Last Border

A Conversation with Jessica Goudeau

September 22, 2020
12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. EDT
Location: Online Zoom Webinar

Over 80 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes, facing uncertain futures. The security, humanitarian, and ethical challenges are vast. It is easy to lose sight of the human story behind the complex policy issues and the daily struggles that forced migrants face. In After The Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America (2020), writer and activist Jessica Goudeau tracks the human impacts of America’s ever-shifting refugee policy as two women narrowly escape from their home countries of Syria and Myanmar and begin the arduous but lifesaving process of resettling in Austin, Texas.

In this conversation, Jessica Goudeau joined Berkley Center Director Shaun Casey to situate the story of two refugees with unique stories and experiences within the larger history of modern refugee resettlement in the United States. Goudeau and Casey discussed how attitudes towards immigrants and refugees have been central to America’s identity for centuries, from World War II to current closed-door policies. Topics included how America’s changing attitudes toward refugees have influenced policies and laws, ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 presidential election may impact America’s resettlement policies in the future, and the profound effect of these policies on human lives.

This event was co-sponsored by Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration and its Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.

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